I watched the Hobbit a while ago and now Inner-Geeks up and running I thought I would share my thoughts on this film, prior to the DVD and Blu-Ray release in early April.

Initially the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy was released and was original and became an instant classic. However Peter Jackson seems to be going the way of Star Wars by releasing the Prequel trilogy which just doesn’t hold up (all it needed was a Jar Jar Binks cameo).

The main factor which seems to cause issues with this film is the length of it at an whopping 169 minutes (with no toilet breaks). You see each of the first three films had a respective book which were each smaller than ‘The Hobbit’ and this is going to be dragged out into a movie marathon. The Hobbit may have been awesome if they had compressed the story into a truely entertaining 2 hour film, instead of making people pay for three separate films spanning 9 hours, just for the sheer hell of it.

The starting sequence to the movie, with Howard Shores well known ‘Lord Of the Rings’ token jingle, involved catapulting the viewer into the home of our family favourite Bilbo ‘the shire’ Baggings was definietly reminiscent of the first ‘Ring’. Bilbo played by Martin Freeman was an excellent choice of actor and seemed like he was born and bred to be a hobbit (oh and he’s English!).

Bilbo is the everyday pleasant Hobbit that you’ll grow to love, and when Gandalf the Wizard (Ian McKellan) and the uninvited gang of dwarfs (not sure of the term for multiple dwarfs? a squad/tribe/gaggle? Anyway…) turn up at his door and invite themselves in, well lets say he’s not the best at telling them to politely ‘do one’.

Mr Baggings is recruited to be a thief due to the apparently excellent sneaky skills all hobbits possess. He is to use this skill to help the dwarfs reclaim their homeland from a massive dragon sat on a very hefty pile of Gold. As you can imagine, a poor little hobbit living in the Shire is a little wary of venturing too far from hobbington, so puts up some resistance. This may be a spoiler to some people but as you can guess he breaks in the end and goes with them (if he didn’t the film might actually be the correct length). This whole process seems to take a lifetime and the director really milks every drop out of the whole “I’m not going, I am going” for gods sake we know your going so just go already scenes.

The film isn’t a complete bust though.

A small positive I thought worth a mention, was the dwarf called Bofur being played by James Nesbitt, who actually had some decent one liners and played a key role in keeping Bilbo on the team. Along with this, one of the key moments in the film features Gollum, in a section that was so ‘Lord of the Rings esqe’ I thought someone had changed the film reel. It was an excellent scene which matched up to my memories of the book and allowed Freeman to really take centre stage and show off the character traits and develop the story of how the ‘Ring’ came into his possession.

Aside from these small wins the entire second half of the film was one long action sequence. It was non-stop mayhem with goblins trying to kill the dwarfs, to orcs trying to kill dwarfs, and back to the goblins trying to catch the dwarfs (with the outcome of probably killing the dwarfs). There was no time for the characters or viewers to stop and say that was very cool and catch their breaths. I would watch this film again just for this hour and skip the whole opening sequence.

Conclusion:
If when you see a dwarf in a film you despise it, and cannot stand to watch another minute, this is not the film for you. If you can cope with these little fellas and are willing to sit though the initial hour and a bit until the action kicks in you may be surprised and enjoy it. And finally if you finish the film and wonder why the birds don’t just carry them all the way to their destination and save us 6 hours you have a very valid point…

Well after this mixed review I would still recommend it as a watch just for the action and the hope it will continue for the remaining several hours and bring on more Gollum.

Enjoy the trailer “my precioussss”.

Author Description

Zak Harper

Gaming, Film & TV Geek at home. SEO and PPC Geek at work. Wife can't stand the Geek but the Geek don't Care!! Also Founder of Inner-Geek.com so enjoy my website!! - Member of the Garmy!!